It was a very different looking Saints team which ultimately came up just short in the last game of the 2021 regular season at the AJ Bell Stadium in Salford.
The champions came into this one knowing that they could not finish the regular season any higher or lower than second irrespective of the result. With that in mind coach Kristian Woolf took the opportunity to rest most of his first choice players. As he had done at the same venue a year ago, Woolf also handed out a smattering of first team debuts. Fullback Jonathan Bennison, winger Shay Martyn and back rower Sam Royle all saw Super League action for the first time. Like last year Woolf’s experimental line-up could not come back from Salford with the result. But you get a sense that the payoff from this team selection will become apparent further down the track.
The youngsters all offered some promise. It was perhaps Bennison who made the biggest impression, scoring a try on his debut after a Regan Grace break had been well supported by Lewis Dodd. It was a special moment for Bennison who also looked consistency safe under a barrage of Tui Lolohea kicks. He didn’t shirk the job of returning the ball either, a vital role given the absence of perhaps the league’s best kick returner in Tommy Makinson. In all Bennison carried the ball 14 times for 75 metres at an average of five metres per carry. He also managed a tackle bust and an offload in what should be a confidence boosting performance.
Grace was very prominent, especially early in the game. He ended it with 157 metres on 18 carries at an average of 8.7 metres per carry. The Welshman came into this game averaging 98.75 metres per game in Super League in 2021. It is not outlandish to suggest this increase in his output was down to the work done by Ben Davies on his inside at left centre. Davies ran for 126 metres on 18 carries of his own but his willingness to look for Grace and to make space for him was a feature of what we should remember was only his second first team appearance. That is not necessarily a criticism of the man he stood in for - Mark Percival - who frankly is so good sometimes that he doesn’t need a winger. But it is a quality that will do Davies no harm if he wants to develop into a top class centre. He was also a fraction away from getting his own name up in lights on the scoreboard as he narrowly failed to chase down a searching kick from Dodd in the second half when Saints had been under what pundits call the cosh.
When your dad is a bona fide legend not only of the club but of the sport it is always going to place a little more pressure on you as an individual. Sporting history is littered with examples of talented offspring who just couldn’t carry the burden. The first team debut of Martyn - son of the great stand-off half of the 1990s and 2000s Tommy - was always going to grab the attention. Unlike his dad, Shay is pacy enough to have been selected on the wing where another Tommy fast approaching iconic status normally resides. Martyn’s running chances outside the returning Josh Simm were few and far between. Yet he managed 85 metres on 10 carries which maths geniuses among you will have observed is only a tad below Grace’s average per carry on the other side. Martyn is also an accomplished goal-kicker, converting both Saints tries on the night and also landing a penalty which put Saints 14-4 up and at that time looking in control.
The final debutant was Sam Royle, a back rower who this week signed a new deal at the club together with Matty Foster. That in itself shows how the Saints coaching staff and hierarchy view his potential. It’s an area which does need development with James Bentley and Joel Thompson heading for the exit at the end of this season. Joe Batchelor has established himself of late as a reliable partner for Sione Mata’utia. The club have also moved to bring in Curtis Sironen from Manly while rumours of Konrad Hurrell arriving from Leeds to play second row persist. Royle may have to bide his time but the club clearly see a future for him. In this game he was limited to 67 metres on 10 carries but he got them without making any errors - something Woolf lives for - and Royle also contributed 28 tackles in defence. Only Wingfield and Matty Lees managed more among Saints defenders.
Along with the newbies a group of fringe players were also given their chance to impress ahead of the bigger games to come this year and the challenges of 2022. Chief among these was Aaron Smith, for once given the starting hooker’s role while James Roby was wrapped in as much cotton wool as Woolf could find lying around. Smith was backed up by Josh Eaves - a man who seems to be permanently on loan elsewhere and unable to get back. Like Keith Barron in Duty Free. There were also starts for Kyle Amor, Wingfield, Simm and Thompson. Dan Norman - a man who we might easily have forgotten about such has been the scarcity of his appearances since joining from London Broncos - was given a run out off the bench.
In truth, very few of these stood out or made it difficult for Woolf to leave them out of the 17 for the playoffs. Amor has done enough this year to persuade the club to offer him another one year deal. A deal which he has gratefully accepted but not one which is particularly popular with the very same people who were delighted by Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook’s new contract. Perhaps the thinking is that two ageing, hardly explosive props is one too many. On this night Amor could only manage 60 metres on nine carries and 15 tackles. These are not stats likely to make Alex Walmsley feel like help is on the way in that front row. It is becoming a problem area for Saints which probably goes some way to explaining how both Amor and McCarthy-Scarsbrook will both be with us again next year. There doesn’t seem to be any Super League-ready talent coming through at prop. Lees has been the great hope but he has been hit by injuries and flattered to deceive at times. Walmsley is the only Saints prop - indeed he is the only Saints player - in the top 20 for metres made in Super League this year.
Norman, Wingfield, Thompson and Lees combined for just 333 metres between them. To put that in context Walmsley made 275 by himself in the win over Leeds Rhinos last week. So the numbers don’t blow you away. The question is are these underwhelming numbers the reason that Saints lost control of a game in which they were well on top for 30 minutes, or have we arrived at these numbers because of that loss of control? From the minute Martyn’s penalty gave Saints that 10-point lead going into the break anybody watching this one had to get used to turning their gaze towards the end that Salford were attacking.
The Red Devils scored four tries and 22 points without reply in that second half as Saints appeared to run out of steam. This is probably understandable when you have a team that is largely an amalgamation of untried youngsters and senior pros who have often found themselves sitting it out on game day due to the depth of the squad. Of this 17 only Lees, Dodd, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Grace, Jack Welsby and the returning Jonny Lomax look likely to be included when the knockout stuff starts next week. Salford may be the side sitting second from bottom of the table - a fact which appears to have cost Richard Marshall the head coach’s job - but they are still a Super League outfit and able to take advantage of an under-strength Saints.
At the hub of everything they did was halfback Chris Atkin. He scored a try and caused some consternation when he declined the obvious opportunity to claim a second and instead passed the ball from behind the sticks to Ken Sio for his second. He had scored his first in the opening half when he raced on to a neat crossfield kick by Lolohea, one of few that Bennison did not manage to cover. Atkin’s gesture of apparent generosity to Sio could easily have been construed as showboating. Taunting even. Yet it is probably worth remembering that his two tries on the night took Sio to the top of Super League’s try scoring charts for the 2021 regular season. In a long hard, slog of a season perhaps the Salford players were comforted in the knowledge that they could at least have a hand in achieving that. There were suggestions that Sio might leave the Red Devils even before Marshall’s exit and he looks to have the ability to play for a top four club. So not Hull FC.
Atkin’s try had been the second of those four second half scores which turned this game around. The first had been a sweet moment for Matty Costello as he scored against the club that let him go at the end of 2020. That brought Salford back to within four at 14-10 after Bennison’s opener for Saints had been added to by a Lomax effort. Lomax chased down Grace’s clever kick to touch down just inside the dead ball line. Had Lomax been able to repeat the trick when haring after a Dodd grubber just before half-time then we may have seen a very different denouement.
As it was Atkin’s score put Salford in front for the first time and his assist for Ellis Robson’s try stretched the lead further before the final nail of that gift to Sio. Saints chances were few and far between thereafter but when they did get them they misfired. An Amor knock on here, a Wingfield error there. Grace uncharacteristically losing his bearings and stepping into touch when Saints were in a good attacking position. When it’s not your night, it’s not your night.
The game ended in a fair degree of farce when a group of Salford fans ran on to the field despite there being one play left for a Saints penalty. Quite apart from their premature celebrations, how did they get on there in an era where pitch invasions are hugely frowned upon and tightly guarded against? And what were they celebrating anyway? I can only think that they were celebrating the fact that a miserable campaign for them has come to an end. Certainly a win over an under-strength Saints team that could do nothing to alter Salford’s lowly league position is not enough to take away the pain of the year they’ve endured. Perhaps they were not celebrating but protesting in the style of Oldham Athletic’s fans in recent weeks. If the departure of Marshall is anything to go by then it is fair to say that the ownership of both Latics and the Red Devils are having problems locating the plot. Either way, you always look silly when you peak too early. As a certain Magic-related gif of Mr McManus currently doing the rounds on social media no doubt proves.
For Woolf the interesting decision is what to do with Lomax now that he appears to have proved his fitness. Lomax has been a crucial player for a number of years but in his enforced absence the Dodd-Welsby partnership has flourished. That is sometimes how a player’s time as a first choice regular ends. Unexpectedly, quickly, and due to a relatively minor injury absence during which others excel. There is no doubt that Saints have had more zest and creativity in attack with the two younger heads at the hub. But on the flip side would Lomax’s experience have prevented that Magic Weekend collapse - for example? Will his reliability be invaluable when the bums start to squeak at playoff time? My suggestion on this week’s 13 Pro-Am Rugby League Show (live every Monday from 7.00pm and then available as a podcast since you ask) was that all three of Lomax, Dodd and Welsby should be in the 17. Quite how you slice that is Woolf’s conundrum to solve. Welsby to start or Lomax? Or both with Dodd off the bench? It’s nice to have options.
The future - despite this defeat - looks promising. It’s now time to focus on the present and the nerve-jangling jeopardy of a semi-final.
No comments:
Post a Comment